Push
by bluesimageburgundy
Summary: Based on the spoilers/promo for 6x17. How might the scene go down. This is my take on it. Steroline.


The smell of blood and the sound of a struggle caught Caroline's attention as she carefully approached her door, arms loaded with shopping bags full of clothes with the bottoms carefully lines with blood bags. She peeked around the corner to find Stefan casually feeding on her neighbor in the dorm hallway in the broad daylight. She rolled her eyes.

"Seriously?!" she scolded, opening her door with the click of the key and tossing her bags inside before returning to the gruesome scene.

Stefan lifted his head from the girl's neck and smirked at her.

"Want some?" he asked, pushing the limp body toward her.

"No, Stefan, I don't 'want some'," she snapped, "I thought I told you not to do anything to get me caught. You're playing with fire doing this right outside of my room!" She stood with her hands on her hips, listening as the girl's pulse began to slow.

Stefan shrugged and lowered his head back down to his meal.

Caroline felt a surge of anger go through her at his flippant attitude and, without much of a thought, she sped forward to grab the victim from his grasp and push her aside. When Stefan raced toward her, Caroline kicked him backward with all of her strength and watched in satisfaction as he hit the hardwood floor with a loud thud.

She bit her wrist and shoved it into the mouth of her quickly fading neighbor.

Stefan rose, but stopped his attack and watched in fascination as Caroline healed and compelled the girl away. When she finally turned back around to deal with him, he was wearing an ominous smile that made her blood cold.

"So, this is what you call not having humanity?" he taunted, stepping toward her.

"Just because I don't think that laying waste to an entire university is the best idea," she began, refusing to back away even as he advanced on her, "You think that means that I care?"

He nodded and smiled, still getting closer.

"Well, it doesn't," she insisted, "It just means that I'm smarter than you."

"Is that so?" he chuckled, his eyes predatory.

"Yeah," she answered, refusing to swallow the nervous lump in her throat.

"Caroline," he said, her name on his lips reminding her of much different times and her thoughts betrayed her. Flashes of intertwined fingers and warm yellow sunsets clouding her thoughts and making her forget who she was dealing with. Making her forget that she didn't care.

"You wanted me to let go," he said, "So why won't you?" His voice was softer now, tempting, seductive. She swallowed the lump in her throat. He watched her as she did.

His lips still glistened with blood and she was suddenly fixated on them. Stefan watched her eyes and then brought his thumb to his lips and wiped away the blood. Caroline watched, mesmerized as he then brought his thumb to her pale lips and smeared the red liquid across them.

Her eyes slipped helplessly closed at the sensation, her tongue coming out to lick her lips clean. Stefan watched her every move, his eyes darkening. At some point she came to her senses and lunged for him, trying to snap his neck and remove him from her dorm. But he anticipated her attack and she was surprised to find herself flat on her back with him hovering over her.

"I'm not going to let you ruin my life," she managed to get out, the wind knocked out of her.

He smiled down at her, no warmth behind the smile or his eyes. The way his body was covering hers making her heat up rapidly.

"Then maybe I'll just end it instead," he said casually, as he lifted a makeshift stake above his head and brought it down toward her chest.

Caroline rolled away just in time to avoid certain death and sped across the hall to the rec room. She found a loaded gun that, no doubt, Stefan had brought and was ready with it as he followed her. He appeared seconds later, waltzing straight up to the gun. It hit him in the stomach and he looked from where the barrel pushed against his bloodied gray t-shirt up to her eyes.

"If you're going to shoot me, Caroline, just do it and get it over with," he said, casually, as if his life meant nothing.

Caroline winced at his words, lowering the gun.

"What are you doing?" she asked, sincerely, confusion creeping in and feeling annoyingly like emotion.

"This is me," he said, stepping closer to her, "Pushing you until you break."

"I'm not going to break, Stefan," she insisted, convinced that she was the one perfect humanity-free vampire on Earth.

"You will," he said, confidently, "It's just a matter of when."

He was standing right in front of her now. She looked him up and down and tried to absorb what was in front of her. The only way to distinguish him from her Stefan was the blood marring the front of his shirt and the cold hard look in his normally soft green eyes. She realized that she'd just thought of normal Stefan as "her" Stefan and the thought scared her. Visions of laughing in front of a roaring fire and his arm across her waist as she slept flashed behind her eyes and she shook them away.

He took the opportunity to grab the gun from her hands and throw it hard across the room. It shattered against the wall. Caroline turned to run, but found herself instead held in place with Stefan's hands firmly on her arms.

"Uh uh," he smirked, "I'm not done here."

Caroline, being confined making her suddenly panic, twisted his arms until he let go. The sound of cracking bones and Stefan groaning in pain filled the air.

"Why don't you leave me the hell alone, Stefan?" she said, "You're complicating things and I don't need any complications." She dusted herself off and started to walk back to her room.

She was startled when she looked up to find him blocking her door.

"Nah, I think I'm going to hang around," he breathed against her face, breath sweet and warm. Caroline tried not to breathe it in, but failed. Her knees were weakening. Along with her resolve.

"You wanted me, and now you've got me," he taunted with a smile.

Caroline rolled her eyes.

"YOU are not the version I wanted," she said, "And now I don't care about either of you."

"I don't believe you," he said, tugging on a blonde curl and watching it spring back into place.

Caroline was angry, but she was also lying. She did want him. In any way she could have him. With or without humanity.

"Screw you," she said, trying to push her arms past him and open her door. She stilled when he grabbed her arms and wrapped them around his neck.

"Just admit it, Caroline, you're still you and you still want me. Now, if you weren't you and you didn't care, you wouldn't care if I was myself or not. You would let me kiss you, like you so obviously want me to, and it wouldn't matter that we aren't ourselves. But you do care and so it does matter and so you aren't going to let this happen."

Caroline, absently listened to him try to psychoanalyze her, her arms still mysteriously around him. His own fingers now stroking up and down her side and sending tingles of electricity down to her toes.

"I don't care," she said, her own voice sounding strange and dishonest to her, "But I just don't want to kiss you."

"Hmm hmm," he muttered, his lips finding her neck and trailing featherlight kisses along her burning skin.

"I don't, Stefan," she insisted, holding in a shuddering breath that was begging to be released, her legs jelly, her cheeks hot.

"Then why are you still here?" he pulled away and whispered in her ear, his hands tugging swiftly on her waist to pull her tightly against him.

The feel of him hard against her was Caroline's undoing. They both knew she was lying anyway.

She slid her fingers through the back of Stefan's hair and tightened her grip, pulling his lips down to hers. The little growl that escaped him, as he reacted, shocked and aroused to her sudden attack, flooded her mind and body with emotions. The rush of emotions combined with the feeling of his tongue sliding hot against hers cause her to moan into his mouth.

He slid his hands down to the seat of her jeans and lifted her, backing them up until her back hit the brightly glowing sign of the soda machine in the lobby. His lips, tongue and teeth continued to devour her mouth and she was breathless, thoughtless, but very quickly drowning in returning emotion. She was helpless to stop any of it.

Stefan dropped her for long enough to slip the leather jacket off of her shoulders, quickly replacing the fabric with his lips and tongue. The tenderness with which he was peppering her skin with kisses reminded her of how she always imagined their first time, which made her remember that everything was all wrong. She tried with every fiber of her being to not care.

Shaking the thoughts from her head, Caroline jumped back up onto Stefan, wrapping her legs around his waist. He buried his face into her neck, sucking and nibbling on the skin there. Caroline hummed in pleasure, looking at the ceiling and trying to focus on the amazing feeling of his mouth on her skin, and not the flashes of imagery that were rapidly playing through her head. Stefan sweetly kissing her in his big bed in his dark room with a sweet smile. Slow and gentle and followed with whispered 'I love yous'. NO! That was not what she wanted. THIS was what she wanted.

Trying to prove a point to herself, she jumped down and knocked Stefan to the ground, straddling his hips before he could get back up. His fangs were out, ready to attack in one way or another. He sat up to meet her mouth and she happily lost herself once again in his kiss. One hand was tangled in her hair, the other found it's way to the small of her back and pulled her against him, the friction forcing a moan from her throat.

Stefan pulled back to look in her eyes. She didn't know what he was looking for, but Caroline took the opportunity to search his rapidly. Searching for any sign that he was in there. For any sign that he saw that she was nearly back. Fooling herself into wondering if he was back. Fooling herself into thinking that she would actually go through with this. He reached up to wipe her cheeks, pulling back with his fingers wet with tears she hadn't realized were running down her cheeks, a symptom of her returning emotion. He brought his fingers to his lips, tasting her tears with a cold smile.

Caroline knew what had to be done, tears continuing to roll down her cheeks. She turned her head to the side, offering the hungry monster her neck. His eyes turned dark and veined, and he hesitated a moment that he thought she didn't notice, before sinking his teeth into her flesh. The pain and then pleasure was overwhelming but she thought, now willingly, about how this was supposed to be, how she wanted to be. And exhaled deeply before raising her hands and snapping his neck.

He fell limply onto the hard ground. Caroline sobbed openly now, all of the pain returning at once. She crumbled to the floor next to his body and allowed all of the devastation to pour over her, unknown amounts of time passing before her tears finally ceased. Grabbing Stefan's body, she sped him to his own porch before returning home. Making plans to do the one thing that she had left, saving Stefan like he had saved her.


End file.
